Abbeys and Friaries

The old Irish monasteries did not belong to any recognised religious order, but the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries saw the introduction to Ireland of a number of well-known continental orders, as part of church reform which was spearheaded by St. Malachy of Armagh. It was he who invited Augustinians and Cistercians from France to inject a new spirit into Irish monasticism. The Augustinians often took over and rejuvenated some of the centuries-old Irish monasteries, but also established their own houses, as at Athassel, Co. Tipperary, Kells in Kilkenny and Newtown Trim in County Meath (which once had what was probably the longest medieval church in Ireland). In contrast, the Cistercians confined themselves strictly to their own new foundations, starting at Mellifont  in 1142, which quickly established daughter-houses at places like Baltinglass in Wicklow and Boyle in Roscommon.

What was common to the abbeys of these new orders was an architectural lay-out of continental origin whereby a church stood tall on one side of an open square or rectangular cloister garth , the other three sides being occupied respectively by chapter-house, refectory/kitchen and domestic quarters for the monks. The churches were cruciform, having two transepts with side-chapels and with a chancel often vaulted in stone. The Cistercian churches were to be plain and severe, but Ireland was sufficiently far away from the order's French centres to ignore precepts and decorate its churches with geoemetric ornament and even human faces, as at Corcomroe in the Burren, Boyle in Roscommon and Knockmoy in County Galway. There, the Romanesque style continued to flourish into the 1220s, and spread to Augustinian houses such as Ballintober in Mayo. The towers at the crossing of these churches were usually an addition of the fifteenth century.

The Franciscans were among the continental religious orders which came to Ireland in the thirteenth century, but it was the fifteenth century which was to be the great period of Franciscan architecture in Ireland. Their friaries had a long church, usually with a tall and slender tower placed nearly half way along its length, fine traceried windows in chancel and transepts , as well as an impressive two-storey stone cloister, the whole complex making a very distinctly Irish contribution to European architecture of the Later Middle Ages. Fine examples include Ennis and Quin, both in County Clare, Muckross near Killarney and Kilconnell in Galway, while Mulltyfarnham in Westmeath distinguishes itself by being still active today.